ISLAMABAD: The dust had barely settled from the controversy over the PTI resignations and National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq is still being berated for having delayed accepting the PTI resignations when he has decided once again to “process” the resignations handed in by the MQM lot, instead of accepting them straightaway.

Ironically, it was August 2014, when the PML-N government faced the dharna and resignations of the PTI and a year later on Wednesday, it confronted another political party that chose to express its unhappiness by resigning from the parliament.

This time around the MQM rocked the capital by handing in its resignations from the National Assembly, the Senate and the Sindh provincial assembly.

Speaker Ayaz Sadiq examined the resignations individually and asked every MNA whether he or she had resigned voluntarily or under duress

At least this time around the ‘revolt’ within the parliament house was limited to resignations and not street protests.

And this time around, the MQM parliamentarians made the effort to first announce their decision in the house and then troop into the speaker’s office to hand in their resignations.

Though the MQM’s elected representatives announced their decision in the National Assembly at around one, by then the news had spread through the parliament house building and the city.

In fact, it had been reported on some news channels during the early hours of Wednesday and when the MQM parliamentarians did not show up when the National Assembly session began, no one was surprised.

They stayed in the parliamentary lodges in the meantime.

Neither was anyone taken aback when they finally turned up and Farooq Sattar announced the decision. He said the decision to quit had been made “against the excesses of the law-enforcement agencies which they are, day in day out committing on party workers in the name of Karachi law and order operation”.

It appears as if even the Speaker was prepared. Waiting for the MQM in his chambers, he ensured that the resignations were examined by him individually and he was able to ask each of them if they had submitted the resignations voluntarily and not under duress.

All this was done under the full glare of the television cameras that had been allowed into the Speaker’s office along with the MQM members.

Once this step was complete, the speaker came out of his office and individually shook hands with the MQM legislators and bid them goodbye.

He did not seem to leave much doubt about what his intentions were. But it seems as if he is also capable of last-minute u-turns.

Because after all this, he did not announce a final decision – a move that was hailed by experts who excitedly pointed out that sanity had prevailed.

The National Assembly secretariat issued a statement that, “the resignations of 24 members of MQM were handed over to the Speaker in his office at about 3pm today - August 12, 2015. The Speaker after receiving these resignations directed the National Assembly Secretariat in writing to process these resignations. The resignations are under process in the relevant branch of the secretariat.” 

With these bureaucratic words, the Speaker has now provided some room for politicians to jump in and find a resolution short of the MQM’s departure from Constitution Avenue.

The MQM has 24 MNAs—19 MNAs on general seats, four on reserved seats for women and one on seats reserved for minorities. Except for Samar Sultana Jafri, who is out of the country, the rest of the 23 MQM legislators did turn up in the Speaker’s chamber. In addition, the party’s eight Senators as well as its 51 provincial assembly members also handed in their resignations.

When they left the parliament house, Dr Sattar said that the entire party leadership had discussed the issue on late Tuesday night before “we reached this decision, because, we were left with no other options, after the military leadership, federal and PPP government in Sindh refused to listen to our grievances”.

“A few of the MQM MNAs who were in Karachi reached Islamabad on Wednesday morning, after whose arrival, we had another meeting to collect our signed resignations and hand them to Dr Sattar,” a MQM leader said.

In his detailed statement before the media later, Dr Sattar explained the party’s decision.

His entire argument boiled down to the fact that military-led Sindh Rangers had singled out the MQM in the name of its ongoing law and order Karachi operation and that as a result, the party had decided to quit the national and provincial legislatures in protest.

Perhaps this is where the MQM situation differs from the PTI one – where the PTI grievances (whether real or imagined) were linked to the government’s lack of interest in pursuing the rigging charges, the MQM is upset about the Karachi operation that is not entirely under the control of the PML-N government.

However, as with the PTI, it seemed the MQM’s resignations were not a done deal.

Apart from the Speaker’s delaying tactic, by the evening the PML-N leadership had hit the talk show circuit to explain how the resignations had so far not been accepted and how efforts would be made to stop the MQM. From Khawaja Asif to Ishaq Dar to younger members like Talal Chaudhry, everyone was quoting the relevant law and clauses to press home the point.

All of this, however, ensured that the MQM’ resignations were the issue of the day in the federal capital. Be it Kasur and child abuse, or the Afghan president’s outburst – everything was relegated to the back burner.

It is noteworthy that the issue of PTI’s resignations was settled merely last Thursday, when, the MQM and JUI-F withdrew their resolutions against the party for skipping the house for more than 40 days.

It is too soon to predict how long the latest resignation saga will last.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2015

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